“Protecting the population is of primary importance in Hungary”, Chief Security Advisor to the Prime Minister György Bakondi stressed on Friday in a telephone statement to Hungarian news agency MTI concerning the UN’s High-Level Conference on Counter-Terrorism in New York.

Mr. Bakondi held several bilateral meetings on the final day of the two-day conference. He told the press that he had met with the heads of the Finnish and Jordanian delegations, NATO representatives, one of the heads of the American delegation, and with Vladimir Voronkov, Director of the UN’s Office of Counter-Terrorism, which was established last year.

The Chief Advisor did not go into detail concerning his meetings in view of the classified nature of what was discussed, but stressed the importance of developing bilateral relations with relation to all of his meetings.

In reply to a question, Mr. Bakondi said that protecting the population is of primary importance in Hungary, and the Hungarian Government regards the prevention of terrorist attacks as its most important task. “Accordingly, with relation to the fight against terrorism it is primarily asking its partners for the information required for prevention, and is itself aiding the fight partly through it experience with relation to well-established systems and through the exchange of information”, he explained.

Mr. Bakondi said that the participants of the conference had agreed to review the work completed again in two years’ time, and to summarise their experience at another conference next year.

Leading politicians from 120 countries, including the heads of counter-terrorism institutions and authorities, attended the two-day High-Level Conference on Counter-Terrorism. Mr. Bakondi was the first representative of a European country to be given the opportunity to make a speech at the conference, which indicates Hungary’s esteem, he said.

In his statement to MTI, the Chief Security Advisor highlighted: “The Hungarian standpoint is taken seriously in the fight against terrorism, our main conclusions are not argued, and Hungary is regarded as a partner in future cooperation”.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)